Swansea coastguard received a Mayday call from a motor cruiser in difficulties off Tusker Rock south east of the Porthcawl lifeboat station. The RNLI Atlantic 85 ‘Rose of the Shires’ was launched at 13:30 to assist the 2 persons on board the vessel which was suffering damage to it decking due to an anchor that appeared to have broken lose and had jammed on the seabed.
RNLI spokesperson, Ian Stroud said, ‘We were requested to launch this afternoon. Our crew with a pump on board were on scene in less than 5 minutes from launch and quickly put a crewman onboard the casualty vessel to access damage and check on the people on board who were both safe and well’.
Crewman Carl Evans said, “We were able to establish that there was no ingress of water and that all the damage appeared to be above the waterline. We managed to tow the vessel over its anchor chain which freed it and allowed it to be recovered on deck. We then removed the tow line and escorted the vessel back towards Porthcawl slipway to further check for damage’.
Porthcawl Lifeboat Operations Manager, Philip Missen MBE said, ‘It was a busy time for our crew this afternoon. We were dealing with the motor vessel when there was a report of the sighting of a child’s’ dinghy being flipped across the open water off Tusker Rock, and heading towards the Ogmore to Southerndown area. Once it was established that the motor vessel was safe to get into the shelter of Porthcawl breakwater the lifeboat was tasked to investigate the dinghy sighting. Fortunately this was found fairly quickly and there was no sign of any casualties in the area. With a brisk south westerly wind blowing up the Bristol Channel it is quite possible that the dinghy may well have blown across from a beach in north Devon. On returning to the breakwater the lifeboat crew carried out a further inspection of the damage to the motor vessel. The skipper decided that with no water ingress he would make his own way back to Swansea’.
